TORONTO – The Toronto Blue Jays appear to be peaking at just the right time, piecing together all the elements of their game during this September surge with a level of consistency they sought during the five sometimes trying months previous.
“Our pitching and defence has kept us in every game and we’ve just been able to get timely hits,” said Matt Chapman, who opened the scoring with a sacrifice fly in the first and walked in the fifth to help set up Raimel Tapia’s three-run double in Saturday’s 6-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles. “That’s the kind of baseball you’re going to have to play if you want to win in the playoffs, because not everybody’s going to go out there and just swing the bat. In the playoffs, pitching and defence takes you a long way. That’s the kind of baseball we need to play if we want to go a long way.”
At 13-4 so far this month after a 13-14 August, the wild-card leading Blue Jays (83-63) are beginning to look like a team with the potential to do precisely that. Now seven games clear of the fourth-placed Orioles (75-69), they are nearly ensconced enough in a post-season berth that they can turn their focus on the jockeying for wild-card positioning with the Seattle Mariners (80-63) and Tampa Bay Rays (80-64), who played later Saturday.
Their latest victory, before a raucous Rogers Centre crowd of 44,448, was the product of the formula Chapman described, as Jose Berrios skipped through six traffic-filled innings thanks in large part to the safety net provided him by several tremendous defensive plays.
“We have played so well as a team,” said Berrios. “Everyone together in that group has been doing what they are is supposed to and that’s why we’ve gotten a lot of wins so far this month.”
The first gem came just six pitches into the game when Cedric Mullins drove a sinker to the wall in left where Tapia leaped to grab it. In the second, Bo Bichette collected a pop up by Rougned Odor despite stumbling over second base and bumping into Terrin Vavra, freezing runners at second and third. Santiago Espinal ranged to collect an Odor grounder in right field to end the third. George Springer made a diving catch on a Ramon Urias flare in the fourth and that inning ended when the Blue Jays alertly noticed a delayed double steal and Bichette relayed home after Mullins broke too far from third, eventually leading to a Chapman tag.
“I just read it,” Bichette said of a play the Blue Jays got burned on during a 7-5 loss Aug. 31 to the Chicago Cubs. “He started creeping off, so I wasn’t going to let him get an easy run like that.”
That helped Berrios, in the words of interim manager John Schneider, “compete his ass off” during a “gutsy” outing after Friday’s bullpen game, as he worked around seven hits and two walks with only three strikeouts over his six frames.
The defensive plays were very much the margin between a quality start and an early exit.
“If you’re doing that, it keeps the pitch count in order, keeps confidence high for pitchers, keeps lineups where they should be,” said Schneider. “It’s winning baseball.”
The first came just six pitches into the game when Cedric Mullins drove a sinker to the wall in left where Tapia leaped to grab it. In the second, Bo Bichette collected a pop up by Rougned Odor despite stumbling over second base and bumping into Terrin Vavra, freezing runners at second and third, Santiago Espinal ranged to collect an Odor grounder in right field to end the third, George Springer made a diving catch on a Ramon Urias flare in the fourth and that inning ended when the Blue Jays alertly noticed a delayed double steal and Bichette relayed home when Mullins broke too far from third, eventually leading to a Chapman tag.
With Berrios forced to work around contact as he allowed seven hits and two walks with only three strikeouts over his six frames, that was the margin between a quality start and an early exit.
Of course, timely hitting brought everything together.
Chapman’s sacrifice fly in the first followed leadoff singles by Springer and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and a Bichette fielder’s choice that put a man on third with less than two out, while Springer’s two-run double in the second made it a 3-0 game.
Gunnar Henderson’s two-run single in the third quickly narrowed the margin, but Berrios managed to hold the lead and in the fifth, Guerrero reached on an error, Chapman and Teoscar Hernandez both walked and Tapia, seemingly in the middle of big spots time and again for the Blue Jays of late, plated them all with a triple.
“I always play like the pressure is on the opponent,” Tapia said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “For example, if I’m hitting with the bases loaded, the pressure is on the pitcher. If I’m playing defence and I make a great play then the pressure is on the hitter. That’s the way I’ve always thought and I’ve been successful like that.”
Schneider noted before the game how Tapia so often did things, big and small, that factored into the result, saying, “it’s crazy.”
Interim manager John Schneider noted beforehand how Tapia so often did things, big and small, that factored into the result, saying, “it’s crazy.”
“He’s got a very unique skill-set,” he continued. “We joke that the holes find him, he doesn’t find the holes. He just ends up getting on base. He’s walked a couple times more than usual lately. It’s just a different skill-set component than what we usually roll out every day in terms of handedness and contact ability and all that kind of stuff. He finds himself right in the middle.”
Tapia’s walk in the fifth inning Friday helped set up Springer’s game-changing three-run homer that turned a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead, an example of the offensive approach Schneider is hoping his team carries into October and beyond.
“I like when the lineup continues to chug along and get hits, work walks and then, if the home runs happen,” he said. “(Friday) was the perfect storm of damage with a full-count, two-out, George three-run homer with (Jordan) Lyles kind of, is he in, is he not in. Tough decision. I get all that. We have the ability to flip the leverage of a game in one swing. (Friday) was obviously very telling of that. When you’re playing in very meaningful games against really good pitchers, that kind of stuff needs to happen as well as the Tapia walk. All that stuff needs to go the right way.”
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Canucks announced Tuesday that defenceman Alex Edler will sign a one-day contract in order to officially retire as a member of the NHL team.
The signing will be part of a celebration of Edler’s career held Oct. 11 when the Canucks host the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Canucks selected Edler, from Ostersund, Sweden, in the third round (91st overall) of the 2004 NHL draft.
He played in 925 career games for the Canucks between the 2006-07 and 2020-21 seasons, ranking fourth in franchise history and first among defencemen.
The 38-year-old leads all Vancouver defencemen with 99 goals, 310 assists and 177 power-play points with the team.
Edler also appeared in 82 career post-season contests with Vancouver and was an integral part of the Canucks’ run to the 2011 Stanley Cup final, putting up 11 points (2-9-11) across 25 games.
“I am humbled and honoured to officially end my career and retire as a member of the Vancouver Canucks,” Edler said in a release. “I consider myself lucky to have started my career with such an outstanding organization, in this amazing city, with the best fans in the NHL. Finishing my NHL career where it all began is something very special for myself and my family.”
Edler played two seasons for Los Angeles in 2021-22 and 2022-23. He did not play in the NHL last season.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
The sixth-ranked Canadian women will face World Cup champion Spain in an international friendly next month.
Third-ranked Spain will host Canada on Oct. 25 at Estadio Francisco de la Hera in Almendralejo.
The game will be the first for the Canadian women since the Paris Olympics, where they lost to Germany in a quarterfinal penalty shootout after coach Bev Priestman was sent home and later suspended for a year by FIFA over her part in Canada’s drone-spying scandal.
In announcing the Spain friendly, Canada Soccer said more information on the interim women’s coaching staff for the October window will come later. Assistant coach Andy Spence took charge of the team in Priestman’s absence at the Olympics.
Spain finished fourth in Paris, beaten 1-0 by Germany in the bronze-medal match.
Canada is winless in three previous meetings (0-2-1) with Spain, most recently losing 1-0 at the Arnold Clark Cup in England in February 2022.
The teams played to a scoreless draw in May 2019 in Logroñés, Spain in a warm-up for the 2019 World Cup. Spain won 1-0 in March 2019 at the Algarve Cup in São João da Venda, Portugal.
Spain is a powerhouse in the women’s game these days.
It won the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2022 and was runner-up in 2018. And it ousted Canada 2-1 in the round of 16 of the current U-20 tournament earlier this month in Colombia before falling 1-0 to Japan after extra time in the quarterfinal.
Spain won the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2018 and 2022 and has finished on the podium on three other occasions.
FC Barcelona’s Aitana Bonmati (2023) and Alexia Putellas (2021 and ’22) have combined to win the last three Women’s Ballon d’Or awards.
And Barcelona has won three of the last four UEFA Women’s Champions League titles.
“We continue to strive to diversify our opponent pool while maintaining a high level of competition.” Daniel Michelucci, Canada Soccer’s director of national team operations, said in a statement. “We anticipate a thrilling encounter, showcasing two of the world’s top-ranked teams.”
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024
TORONTO – The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced cookie brand Oreo as the team’s helmet sponsor for the upcoming NHL season.
The new helmet will debut Sunday when Toronto opens its 2024-25 pre-season against the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Arena.
The Oreo logo replaces Canadian restaurant chain Pizza Pizza, which was the Leafs’ helmet sponsor last season.
Previously, social media platform TikTok sponsored Toronto starting in the 2021-22 regular season when the league began allowing teams to sell advertising space on helmets.
The Oreo cookie consists of two chocolate biscuits around a white icing filling and is often dipped in milk.
Fittingly, the Leafs wear the Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s “Milk” logo on their jerseys.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
